NEW DELHI, INDIA: Gartner expects India to have 6.9 million mobile and fixed WiMAX connections by the end of 2011. However it expects India will remain a niche market for WiMAX until 2009.

Nareshchandra Singh, Principal Research Analyst, Gartner in an interaction with Idhries Ahmad of CIOL, explains why inspite of the hype around the technology, WiMax will remain a niche market for WiMAX until 2009.

Singh isn't terribly excited at the way Indian government has helped service providers to roll out WiMax service in the counrty.

"Although presented as an important driver for broadband policy in India, the Indian government has failed to effectively motivate operators to roll out country-wide mobile broadband. WiMAX has been selected by the Indian government to connect rural areas to the Internet, adds the . However, low PC penetration will lead to limited demand".

The principal research analyst, Gartner adds ” By January 2008, India had only 3.4 million broadband subscribers, far short of the target of 9 million by 2007 set by the broadband policy. Given the low levels of PC penetration in India, there will be a limited demand for WiMAX and the country-specific mobile broadband framework makes a nationwide rollout of WiMAX cost prohibitive. Hence, in the near term, WiMAX is still a niche technology and limited to enterprise and high-end residential users in urban India.”

As mobile frequencies will not be available in the short term, Gartner does not expect mobile WiMAX rollouts to be available at larger scales before 2009, at the earliest. Therefore, most WiMAX connections in the short and mid-term will be for nomadic or fixed wireless applications.

The research firm cautions India will remain a niche market for this technology until 2009. "Although the Indian government is strongly promoting WiMAX as a technology to connect the country with broadband services, the country-specific mobile broadband framework makes a nationwide rollout of WiMAX cost prohibitive", says Gartner.

While the government policy proposes extensive rural coverage using WiMAX, research firm Gartner believes that due to the limitations of the spectrum allocation, the only deployment for a sustained business case is to bring WiMAX broadband (point-to-point 802.16-2004) to rural centers in villages or schools, hospitals and so on. "From the access point, individual access will then be available via a Wi-Fi mesh. In urban areas, WiMAX can be utilized to offer mobile and semi-mobile broadband to consumers and enterprise customers", says Singh.

Singh opines that in the near term Indian WiMAX market is not very promising. and hence advises carriers to focus on the enterprise market and high end residential subscribers.

" At the present time, it is not clear if vendors would benefit from risk-sharing models with Indian operators. Overall, the long term potential of the Indian WiMAX market heavily relies on spectrum allocation, WiMAX ecosystem maturation, and the timeliness of WiMAX and 3G licenses.”

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